Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College presents Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company Lunar New Year Celebration: Year of the Monkey
Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 3pm
Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College continues its 2015-16 Season, once again partnering with Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company for its third annual Lunar New Year Celebration on Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 3pm. Tickets are $25 for adults and $12.50 for children (ages 12 and under) and can be purchased at BrooklynCenter.org or by calling the box office at 718-951-4500 (Tue-Sat, 1pm-6pm).
The prestigious Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company presents an all-new celebration of Chinese culture commemorating the Year of the Monkey, a year characterized by cleverness, curiosity, and playful mischief. The festive, family-friendly event will showcase thrilling choreography inspired by shadow puppetry, Peking Opera performers in dazzling costumes, live music performed by the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, and a traditional Chinese marketplace.
The performance will open with the traditional Double Lion Dance, an audience favorite that represents the coming of spring and a prayer for peace in its depiction of a small child in harmony with ferocious lions. Also included will be a Mongolian Chopstick Dance, the Coinstick Dance from Hubei, and a solo piece entitled Joy, performed by guest artist Jia Liu, a former teacher at the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy.
The Company will be joined by two international artists from Beijing, sponsored by the Cultural Ministry of the People's Republic of China, performing a special excerpt from Monkey King in the Heavenly Palace, one of the most celebrated Peking Opera productions in China.
Two of Nai-Ni Chen's original works will be featured in the program, showcasing her signature cross-cultural style that fuses the dynamism of American modern dance with the elegant splendor of her own Chinese culture. Moveable Figures, a dance for seven, is inspired by the art of shadow puppetry. Mirage, created by Ms. Chen in 2012, is inspired by her first experience on the Silk Road, incorporating the amazing cultural dance of the Uyghur people and rhythm from Persia and Central Asia.
About Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Now in its 27th season, New Jersey's acclaimed Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company seeks to bridge the gap in understanding between cultures by fusing the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the grace and splendor of Asian art, taking their audiences on journeys beyond cultural boundaries to where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline.
Since its inception in 1988, the Company has earned a broad base of public support, becoming the pride and joy of Asian-American communities across the United States with tours to major performing arts centers in more than 30 states. In 2001, the Company also began touring abroad and has performed in Central America, Korea, China, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and Mexico. Having participated in teaching and performance activities at both the Beijing International Dance Festival in China and the Chang Mu International Dance Festival in Seoul, South Korea in 2014, it is one of the most widely toured professional Asian-American companies in the United States, reaching more than 100,000 audience members a year.
In addition to its extensive season of touring and performing, the Company also has developed Arts in Education residency programs in many school districts to bring culture and arts into educational settings. For three years, the Company conducted the afterschool dance program at Shuang Wen School in New York
City and the Poetry Live! Project with Litchfield Performing Arts, Inc. in Connecticut, which reached more than 1,000 children each year. In New Jersey, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has been in residence at Westminster School in Elizabeth for more than 10 years and has successfully integrated dance, music, and poetry with academic disciplines.
About the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York
A non-profit organization founded in 1961, the Chinese Music Ensemble is the oldest, largest, and only full-scale Chinese orchestra in the United States and the Americas, with a membership of more than forty musicians. The Ensemble's repertory ranges from ancient classical to modern compositions, spanning some fifteen hundred years of history. With the goal of promoting Chinese music, the Ensemble has performed at major concert halls in New York and at schools, colleges, and venues throughout the Eastern United States.
About Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts
Founded in 1954, Brooklyn Center for the PerformingArts at Brooklyn College presents outstanding performing arts and arts education programs, reflective of Brooklyn's diverse communities, at affordable prices. Each season, Brooklyn Center welcomes over 65,000 people to the 2,400 seat Whitman Theatre, including up to 45,000 schoolchildren from over 300 schools who attend their SchoolTime series, one of the largest arts-in-education programs in the borough.